


Reality vs. Fairy Tales

by Zetal (Rodinia)



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Future Fic, M/M, Misunderstandings, Otabek's Niece, Yuri Tells A Fairy Tale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-30
Updated: 2017-12-30
Packaged: 2019-02-23 22:59:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13200384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rodinia/pseuds/Zetal
Summary: Otabek loves his sister to death.  He does.  Most of the time, he loves that she's one of Yuri's Angels.  He just wishes she'd accept that no, he and Yuri really are not dating, they are best friends but not boyfriends.He's babysitting his niece when Yuri comes to Almaty.  Five-year-olds have big mouths.





	Reality vs. Fairy Tales

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kiazareni](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiazareni/gifts).



Yuri had been expecting the car. Otabek’s motorcycle was a million times cooler and would be the usual mode of transportation, but the car was a lot more practical for picking visitors up from the airport when the visitor was staying for a month and, therefore, would have luggage. He had not been expecting the carseat with the five-year-old girl.

He hadn’t noticed the girl as he flung himself into Otabek’s arms as he came out of the gate. Otabek’s arms had come up around him as usual, but he let go quickly. “Yura. Sorry about this, but… meet my niece, Aruzhan. Rayana’s daughter.”

“Your niece?” Yuri looked at the little girl in surprise. “Hi. What am I supposed to call you?”

“Aruzhan. Or Aru.” The girl looked up curiously at him. “Are you Uncle Beka’s boyfriend?”

Otabek picked up the girl. “Aru, this is Yuri Plisetsky.”

“Hi." She tilted her head at him. "Am I supposed to call you Mr. Plisetsky or Yuri Nikolayevich?”

“Just Yuri’s fine.” Yuri glanced at Otabek, but as always, his friend’s face was almost unreadable. There was just a trace of a blush, though, which Yuri found interesting. “Do you like cats, Aru?”

Aruzhan crossed her arms and glared at Yuri. “What kind of idiot doesn’t like cats?”

Yuri laughed. Coached or not, that was the best answer, and he couldn’t imagine a five-year-old lying about that. “Okay. You’re awesome. I’m glad I got to meet you.”

Otabek put Aru down and let her run toward the baggage claim. “Sorry about this. I told Raya you were coming and she needed to come get Aru by yesterday, but she got stuck in storms and won’t be able to get here until tomorrow.”

“It’s cool. I like her.” Yuri elbowed Otabek. “You didn’t answer her question.”

“You noticed that.” Otabek’s flush darkened. “Raya’s a member of Yuri’s Angels, and like so many of them, she’s convinced we’re dating. I’ve given up trying to convince her otherwise, and it seems like it’s spread to her kids.”

“Sorry, Beka, but I think I kind of hate your sister now.” Yuri made a face. It’s not that he wasn’t grateful to have a lot of fans – more fans meant more sponsorship opportunities, and more opportunities meant he could be pickier about which opportunities he took while still making sure his grandfather was taken care of and he had what he needed to compete. He just wished his fans were a little less… aggressive… about their enthusiasm.

Otabek just shook his head. “She’s not one of the crazy ones. Aside from thinking I’d be dating anybody for as long as I’ve supposedly been dating you without having introduced you to my parents, but that’s at least a harmless kind of crazy. She’s not sending me threatening letters or emails or talking about finding a way to put GPS chips in your clothes or able to identify a particular blond hair as having come from you.”

Yuri stopped suddenly. “You’re getting threats?”

Otabek took his hand and gave it a gentle tug. “Don’t worry about it. One advantage to Raya being in Yuri’s Angels is that she’s told the current president who she is, so when I get threats, Raya passes them along to the president and those people get dealt with.”

“No. What. You’re getting threats from my fans?” Yuri didn't move. That was just not acceptable.

“Only the incredibly delusional ones who are convinced that if it weren’t for me working some sort of bizarre magic on you, you’d be dating them. Only once has it ever turned out not to be some teenage girl who it had never occurred to that I’m a real person just like her, and that guy’s in jail now for unrelated charges – he beat up some dude for rejecting him.” Otabek tugged again, and this time, Yuri started moving.

Yuri wanted to kick something as he watched for his luggage. His bags were easy to identify, thanks to the cheetah print, so he could stand there and seethe at his fans while he watched. Otabek didn’t seem too bothered by the fact that he was getting hate, but Yuri? Yuri was not happy about that. What was Otabek even getting in return that made it worth it? A foul-mouthed bad-tempered friend who tried to crush his dreams at half their competitions?

“Come on, Yuri.” Otabek tapped his shoulder. “We’ve got your bags.”

Yuri looked down. Oh. So they had. He must have been more out of it than he thought. “Great. Let’s go.”

 

Once they were settled into the car, Aru practically bounced. “Yuri? How’d you meet Uncle Beka?”

Yuri's turn to blush a little as he remembered the incident. It certainly didn't paint him in a good light. “I called him a bad name because my brain was shut down from how impressively he dealt with this guy I hate.”

“That doesn’t count. You had no idea who I was and I ignored you.”

“Give me some credit, I knew you were one of the other skaters in the Grand Prix. What do I look like, Viktor?” Yuri protested.

Otabek glanced over at him. “Well… now that you mention it… no comment, you’d kill me with your knife shoes.”

“Hey!” Otabek ignored him, and Yuri decided to let it go. Not worth fighting. Besides, he still owed Aru an answer. “In that case, do I tell her the fairy tale or the real one?” Personally, he liked the real one better anyway, but the fairy tale made for a better story.

Otabek didn't even pretend to think it over. “Tell her the fairy tale. You don’t even remember the real one.”

“Yes, I do. I didn’t when you told me, but that’s because I was trying to figure out how I didn’t notice you as you are now in class." Otabek looked at him skeptically. "Of all things, I remembered when I was watching you skate your short program.”

Otabek snorted. “Wow. No wonder I lost to JJ.”

“Fuck you, Beka, that’s not what I meant.” Yuri clapped a hand over his mouth and glanced over his shoulder at the five-year-old kid with the big ears who was still waiting for her answer and therefore listening attentively. “Um. I mean…”

“It’s okay,” Otabek reassured him with a tiny smile. "She's heard way worse from Selim and me when we're working on our bikes."

That was good to know, although it didn't really make it better. At least he wasn't going to be blamed when Aru's mom heard her using a new word. “I just meant that Mila and the old man were talking about how different you were from Worlds or the qualifiers, and it made me realize I remembered the weird kid who was so much older than everyone else.” Yuri twisted in his seat to look at Aru. “So, you want to hear the fairy tale?”

Aru looked at him skeptically. “Is it real?”

“It’s real.” Close enough, anyway.

“Sure, then.”

“Okay. Once upon a time, there was a fairy.”

“I thought you said this was real!” Aru pouted and glared at Yuri.

“It is. Just listen.” Aru clamped her mouth shut. “Anyway, the fairy was running from a group of angels that wanted to capture him and put him on display. He was hiding, but the angels were closing in and about to find him. Just as the fairy was about to despair, there was a rumbling of thunder, and the fairy heard a voice calling to him. ‘Get on!’”

“To this day I have no idea why the fairy got on,” Otabek interrupted.

“Because between the certainty of capture by the angels and the unknown intentions of the hero offering to take him away, the fairy had the f… the sense to go with the unknown.” Yuri turned back to Aru. “As it happened, the voice belonged to a hero, who whisked the fairy away to the top of a hill where they could see the whole city. By then, the fairy was starting to get a little less scared, and demanded to know what the hero wanted. After all, rescuing a fairy typically comes with a reward.”

Otabek chuckled. “You said you knew who I was. Did you seriously think I was going to demand anything?”

“When I told Mila I got on your bike, she asked how I knew you weren’t kidnapping me yourself to get me out of the competition. I’m not an idiot, the idea had occurred to me, but I trusted you a hell of a lot more than the angels. If nothing else, it was all over social media and you'd get kicked out of the competition too.” He twisted back around to Aru. “As it turns out, the hero was a true hero, and the only reward he asked for was the chance to talk to the fairy. They’d met once before, and the hero had spent his life since then trying to make himself worthy of the fairy’s respect. Once he’d explained, he asked the fairy to be his friend.”

“And did the fairy say yes?” Aru asked

Yuri bit back the first answer. She was five. She didn't deserve the sarcasm someone his own age would have gotten at that question. “Yeah, of course. See, no one had ever asked the fairy to be his friend before, but something about the hero made him feel like it was worth taking that chance. He’s never regretted anything, either.”

“Cool story. And it’s real?”

“Yep.”

Aru giggled. “So how’d you start dating?”

“I’ve told your mother a hundred times, we’re not,” Otabek said before Yuri could even start to answer. “If we were, you’d have met him long before now.”

“But you two act like you’re dating… you don’t shut up about him and he was so excited to see you again…”

“You don’t shut up about Maya and Maryam - Selim's twins," Otabek added aside to Yuri. "You’re always so excited to see them Raya’s worried that you’re going to bounce out of the carseat. Are you dating your cousins?”

Yuri snickered as Aru glared at her uncle. “That’s different! They’re my cousins and my best friends!”

“Yura’s not my cousin, but he’s my best friend.”

Yuri's snickering got stronger. “You do realize you’re using logic on a five-year-old, Beka?”

“Five-year-olds can be logical when they want to. The trick is to make them want to.” Otabek glanced in the mirror at his niece. “Given my success with my sister, I think it’s hopeless.”

Aru stuck her tongue out at Otabek. “You know, you could just start dating him and then you wouldn’t have to convince me or Mama that you’re not!”

The snickers gave way to a full laugh. “Yeah, Beka. If trying to convince your sister that you’re not dating me is too annoying, you could just start dating me. You’re right. Five-year-olds do understand logic.”

“Yura, don’t be a dick.”

Yuri jumped and looked over at Otabek. His irritation showed, which meant he had to be seriously pissed. He let the subject drop for the moment, instead asking Aru about the cousins she loved to talk about.

 

Later that night, when Otabek had calmed down some and Aru was busy elsewhere, Yuri decided to revisit. “Hey, Beka? You seemed cranky at the idea of dating me…”

Otabek groaned. “You deserve better than someone who’s just dating you to shut his sister up. Why would you even joke about that?”

“That doesn’t explain how pissed you were at me for that. Also, for the record? I wasn’t joking.” Otabek's eyebrows shot up. “Okay, I was a little, that’s not exactly a good reason to start dating anyone, but am I right in thinking that you aren’t pissed at the idea of dating me, you’re pissed at me treating us dating like a joke?”

“Yes. It’s not a joke to me. You’ve said pretty often that you don’t want the hassle of a boyfriend, and I respect that, but if you ever change your mind I’m hoping to have a chance. No pressure, okay? Just don’t joke about it.”

“I wasn’t joking.” Yuri stared at Otabek. He trusted his best friend – if Otabek said there was no pressure, then he meant it, he was not going to do anything to make Yuri feel like he owed Otabek a chance. And damn if that didn’t make it that much easier to tell him this. “If you want a chance, you’ve got it. I’m not ready to go out looking for a boyfriend, but if it’s you, we can do this. Hard part’s already done.”

Otabek looked at him skeptically. “What’s the hard part, then? Because relationships are a lot of work. A lot of hassle.”

Yuri took his hands and squeezed them. “The hard part is finding someone I can trust enough to open up to. Finding someone I can believe won’t run like hell once they find out that the prickly Ice Tiger is a lot more real than the fairy.”

“You know, fairies aren’t all sweetness and light in the fairy tales. There are a lot of bad-tempered fairies and some are even downright nasty even when they’re on the good side.”

“Still, the expectation… not the point. You know me. You’ve always liked and respected me for who I am, and when you told me what you wanted to see from me, it was what I wanted to be. I dunno, seems like that kind of shit is important in a relationship. I’m not saying I think it’ll be easy for us to be together, but the hardest part, the letting you get close enough to where I’d think the work involved in a relationship is worth it as much as the work involved in being a champion skater is, that’s done. You’ve seen how hard I’ll work for something I really want.”

“Something you really want, yes. But do you really want this, or is this something you’re going along with because I want it?”

“A little of both, maybe? A lot more of me wanting it, knowing that you want it is just pushing me to get over the fear and do this now instead of waiting for… I don’t even know. There really isn’t any good reason to wait, it’s not like I’m going to change my mind about you and if you haven’t changed your mind about me yet, I don’t think you’re gonna.”

“Okay. You… okay.” Otabek pulled Yuri closer. “You’re serious about this? You mean it?”

“I’m serious about this. I mean it.” Yuri raised his head just enough to kiss Otabek. It wasn't like in the fairy tales, a perfect, magical moment. That just made it better - this was real.


End file.
